Hans Airways moves into new Birmingham Airport base
Image courtesy Hans Airways
This week, airline sales professional Seema Verma (above) joined the team as Sales Manager-UK. Birmingham-based Seema will interface with UK travel agents and TMCs, highlighting the company’s proposed service offering as a hybrid, two class, long haul airline, serving India. She will help generate sales leads with an impressive contact book reflecting her 25 years in the industry.
Punjabi-speaking Seema started her career at Birmingham Airport in customer support where she worked with carriers Emirates, Lufthansa, KLM and others. Her last sales and customer facing role was with British Airways as passenger service agent/Ambassador before a career switch into banking and foreign exchange. (NatWest Bank, Fexco, Sainsbury Bank). Seema is thrilled to return to aviation, committed to ensuring Hans Airways’ prospective passengers receive excellent customer service and that every step of their journey and relationships with the travel trade are solid.
“Delivering and building relationships is crucial in such a people focused business and the culture of Hans Airways, which is positioning as a community airline, has that at its heart. This is why I was so pleased to join their management team,” she said.
Hans Airways plans to make Amritsar in Northern India its first destination, flying from Birmingham Airport to India in a two class A330-200 aircraft.
The company is currently recruiting additional cabin crew to be based in Birmingham, Hans Airways will be adding 20 more cabin crew to support its Airbus A330-200 operations. Eleven more cabin crew will commence training in November in Birmingham.
Hans Airways is partnering with the Resource Group for cabin crew applications.
*Hans Airways is readying to commence flying within a month of the formal award of its UK Air Operator’s Certificate from the UK Civil Aviation Authority.
Hans Airways is the UK’s newest hybrid, long-haul airline venture, blending value for money fares with a quality inflight service offering. Hans Airways will offer two cabin classes: Economy (called Anand), with a 31-inch seat pitch and 274 seats and Premium Economy (called Anand Plus), offering a 56" pitch and 24 seats. It will offer high quality complimentary inflight entertainment and catering as standard.
A loyalty programme is planned. To be known as FlyHAPEEI (Hans Airways Passengers Environment Education Initiative), it will reward passengers with all the regular benefits of a frequent flyer programme and with a strong emphasis on corporate social responsibility, create opportunities to donate to children’s educational charities in India or conservation and water preservation projects.
Hans Airways’ senior management has identified a high demand for regular secondary city air links between the UK and India, drawing on its CEO’s considerable experience instigating a series of charter flights for Monarch Airlines and FlyJet.
It intends to have a close working relationship with travel agencies and travel management companies.
Hans Airways submitted its UK AOC application in March 2020, following extensive discussions with the UK Civil Aviation Authority and Department for Transport.
Hans Airways’ management team share an extensive experience of the commercial aviation industry and a deep understanding of the needs of its core focus market. Financial support for the airline has come, inter alia, from the Indian community in the UK.
